Chapter 2 #2
Every cell in my body forgets how to function. My lungs stop. My blood stutters. My soul tries to climb out of my skin just to get closer.
He’s tall — like too tall, the kind of tall that makes you want to climb him just to see how far you can fall. His shoulders stretch the seams of his military uniform, taut with power, like he could kill a man with the flick of his wrist and not even flinch doing it.
Short, dark hair. Faded buzz cut. Feral jawline. A scar just beneath his lip that makes me want to ask how he got it while I trace it with my tongue.
And his eyes. God, his eyes.
They’re the most beautiful blue I’ve ever seen.
Not sky blue.
Not baby blue.
Ocean blue — the kind that drowns you without warning.
Deep.
Cold.
Endless.
Eyes that look straight through you like they’ve already seen the worst parts of you and decided to stay anyway.
He doesn’t look at me yet — thank God — because if he did, I’d probably combust on the spot. I’d disintegrate. Melt into the fucking floor.
Tattoos curl under his sleeves, teasing the skin just above his veins — thick, ropey forearms that make me want to misbehave. Make me want to touch. Bite. Kneel.
Everything about him screams danger and discipline — lethal, commanding, untouchable.
And all I want is to be touched.
I shouldn’t be staring.
I shouldn’t be drooling.
But my eyes are traitors, and my legs have suddenly forgotten how to fucking move.
The glass in his hand sweats like it’s nervous to be held by him. His fingers flex around it, knuckles white, veins thick, and I swear if he licks that drop off his lip I’m going to scream.
He doesn’t belong here.
He belongs in some forbidden place — some war zone or throne room or the kind of dream you wake up from sweating.
There’s nothing soft about him.
Nothing gentle.
Just coiled power and god-tier genetics wrapped in medals and ink.
And then — fuck.
His head tilts. Just slightly.
He senses me.
And those blue eyes — those eyes I could drown in and thank him for the privilege — find me.
Dead-on.
Locked.
Like he’s choosing me.
I freeze.
Mid-breath.
Mid-thought.
Mid-sin.
Because there’s something feral in the way he looks at me — like a man who’s spent too long denying himself things and just found his exception.
My pulse kicks.
My thighs press.
My fingers clutch the side of my dress like maybe it’ll save me.
But nothing’s saving me now.
Not when he’s still looking at me like I’m not just a girl in a dress, but a goddamn target.
And then — he moves.
Not fast.
Not aggressive.
Just… with purpose.
Straight.
Toward.
Me.
The crowd parts as if it knows. Like even the sinners in this place recognise a predator when they see one and instinctively get the fuck out of his way.
And me?
I can’t breathe.
I can’t move.
I’m rooted to the floor like my body wants to be caught. Claimed. Consumed.
He’s still coming.
Slow.
Measured.
Like a storm that doesn’t need to rush because it knows you’re not escaping it anyway.
And when he finally stops — he’s right in front of me.
Towering.
Smelling of danger and something darker.
Leather, steel, and that heady heat that clings to skin after a fight.
I stare at his chest because I can’t look at his face.
Not yet.
Not when I’m this close.
He leans in.
Barely.
But enough to make the world shrink around us.
“Do you always stare at strange men in bars, butterfly?”
His voice.
Holy fucking hell, his voice.
Deep.
Raspy.
Full of gravel and smoke and sex.
It skates across my skin as if he’s dragging it with his teeth.
I blink up at him, and he smirks like he already knows what he’s doing to me.
“I—uh—sorry.” My voice cracks. My brain is static. My whole body’s on fire.
“Don’t be.” He steps closer. Too close. His thigh brushes mine. “I like being watched.”
Jesus Christ.
I am going to combust.
Right here.
In front of the bar.
In front of this god of war with ocean eyes and a scar that’s begging to be licked.
His gaze dips to my mouth.
Lingers.
Then climbs back up slowly, like he’s cataloguing my sins one by one.
“What’s your name?” he asks, voice low enough to thread through my bones.
My lips part. Nothing comes out.
He leans in closer, and now I can’t look away. Those blue eyes hold mine hostage.
“I said,” he murmured, “what’s your name, butterfly?”
“Cassandra.”
He hums as if it tastes good in his mouth.
Like I taste good.
“Pretty name.”
Then he reaches out, one hand brushing a strand of hair from my cheek like he has every right to touch me.
Like I’m already his.
“Oh, you found him.”
Lola’s voice cracks through the atmosphere like a firework, sharp and bright against the low bass. “Where the hell have you been?”
She jumps into his arms, and the whole room tilts because I watch — stunned, breathless — as he wraps his arms around her body with an ease that suggests history, familiarity, blood.
Never once does he take his eyes off me.
Not once.
It’s like he’s holding her because she expects him to, but he’s looking at me like he’s already decided I’m the one who matters.
Once he lets her go, she slaps his chest. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Hell.” He grunts the word, low, rough, a sound that vibrates through the thick, dim air.
“Funny,” she smirks, flicking his shoulder with the casual confidence of someone who’s known him their entire life. “I have been looking everywhere for you.”
Fuck.
Of course the first man I was remotely attracted to was dating my best friend.
I inwardly groan, my soul trying to fling itself into traffic.
Why does the universe hate me?
“Oh, Cass, I don’t think you’ve met properly, or have you?” I shake my head, too terrified to speak, too overwhelmed to breathe, absolutely not willing to open that can of fucking worms. “This is my brother, Dax.”
“This. Is. Your. Brother.” I gasp, the words tumbling out in a tone that absolutely exposes me.
I know how I sound, but I can’t keep the shock out of my mouth.
Lola beams, totally unfazed by the fact that my ovaries just staged a full-blown coup and tried to overthrow my moral compass.
“Yep,” she says, with a casual shrug that should be illegal. “Captain Dax Kingston. Two tours in Syria, one in Afghanistan, currently stationed in Germany, Special Forces, psychological ops unit. And yes”—she grins, nudging him with her elbow—“he’s as scary as he looks.”
The air around us tightens at that.
He doesn’t flinch.
Doesn’t smile.
Just watches me like I’m a puzzle he’s already halfway through solving, like he’s waiting for the moment the last piece clicks into place.
I blink. “Wait… psychological ops?”
“He breaks people’s minds for a living,” Lola says, as if she’s discussing someone’s hobby. “You know — interrogations, mind games, the whole scary shadow stuff.”
“That’s not exactly accurate,” Dax mutters, voice low and lethal, resonating through the space between us with the weight of a man who’s seen too much and says too little.
She laughs. “He won’t talk about it. All classified, of course.”
She air-quotes the word classified like it’s a punchline.
“Even his file’s redacted. I had to Google half of that just to fill in the blanks. The military loves its secrets.”
My brain is static.
Heat.
Noise.
Bass.
Him.
It’s too much.
He was… gone?
For years?
Off the grid?
Lola keeps talking like she doesn’t notice the way my entire nervous system is glitching.
“He’s been off the grid for a while. Just got back a few days ago. He didn’t even tell me until he showed up on my doorstep like some kind of moody ghost.”
“Didn’t know I needed permission,” he grunts, still looking at me, his gaze heavy enough to press fingerprints on my ribs.
Lola rolls her eyes. “Ignore him. He’s been like this since he was sixteen. Broody. Grunty. Stabby.”
She pokes him in the ribs and immediately winces. “I swear, it’s like hugging a concrete wall.”
“Try asking nicer next time,” he murmurs, still not breaking eye contact with me.
It’s like he’s speaking to her but watching me react.
Like I’m the subject of the experiment.
Jesus fucking Christ.
I am going to explode.
Spontaneously combust.
Become glitter.
Lola finally seems to notice the tension crackling like a live wire between us, because her eyes narrow. “You two… haven’t met before, right?”
“No,” I say too quickly.
“No way. Never. Nope. Definitely not.”
“Strange,” she hums, almost to herself. “You’re acting like you have.”
“I’m just… surprised,” I mutter, dragging my eyes off Dax’s jawline and the dangerous curve of his throat and the muscle in his forearm that looks like it was carved for sinful purposes. “You never told me you had a brother.”
She shrugs. “You never asked.”
“That seems like a huge thing to leave out.”
“He’s been gone, Cass. Overseas. Black sites. God knows where.” Her voice softens in a way that almost feels like apology. “We don’t talk much. Not really. He’s not big on phones.”
“He’s not big on talking,” I mutter.
“I’m right here,” he says, voice like a blade unsheathing.
I swallow. “Yeah. I noticed.”
He shifts closer.
Just enough.
Just slightly.
But I swear the air leans with him.
And I swear the room tilts, because being near him feels like gravity has stopped obeying the rules.
“I’ll be at the bar,” Lola says suddenly, sensing something, maybe everything. “You two… catch up or whatever.”
She’s gone before I can protest, disappearing into the neon fog like she planned this whole thing from the beginning.
And now it’s just him.
Me.
And the space between us that feels like it might catch fire.
His presence consumes the air — heavy, disciplined, dangerous — and the club seems to fade at the edges until there’s nothing left but the heat of his body and the blue of his eyes and the quiet, devastating certainty that I am not leaving this room the same girl who walked into it.